NASA Awards Grants to Two Universities for STEM Education Programs

WASHINGTON, June 6, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Minority University Research and Education Project (MUREP) has selected two minority serving institutions for cooperative agreement awards totaling approximately $1 million to help strengthen science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) curricula at the schools.

Lawson State Community College in Birmingham, Alabama, and New York City College of Technology in Brooklyn, will receive as much as $500,000 each.

The MUREP Other Opportunities solicitation challenged schools to propose innovative ways to create and implement STEM activities, with a goal of increasing the number of historically underserved students studying STEM fields relevant to NASA's diverse exploration missions.

"NASA's MUREP program helps colleges and universities give students from underrepresented and underserved communities a strong foundation in STEM fields, which in turn helps create a strong STEM workforce," said Donald James, associate administrator for NASA's Office of Education.

Through MUREP's competitive awards, NASA provides financial assistance to minority serving institutions, including historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions, Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, American Indian and Alaskan Native serving institutions, predominantly black institutions and other minority serving institutions and eligible community colleges. These institutions recruit and retain underrepresented and underserved students, including women, girls, veterans and persons with disabilities, into STEM fields.